John Dronsfield

Born in Lancashire, Dronsfield studied briefly at the Manchester School of Art before enlisting with the Young Soldiers’ Battalion – Cheshire Regiment in 1918.[1] He was discharged as physically unfit in 1919 and began working in stage design with Sybil Thorndike in London. He emigrated to South Africa in 1939 where he continued his career as a stage designer. In 1942 he published Non-Europeans Only, a book of drawings of the Cape Coloured community.[1]

He held his first solo exhibition in Cape Town in 1939. This was followed by joining a South African exhibition at the Tate in 1948, and at the Venice Biennale in 1951. He committed suicide in 1951 and, following his death, two memorial exhibitions were held in Cape Town in 1955 and 1967.[1]

In 1955, Oxford University Press published a collection of his verses and satires. Two portfolios of his graphic studies were also published under the title African Improvisations.[1]